By: Mackenzie Wright | February 25, 2019

A dad taking his children shopping at a Macy's store in Michigan says his 4-year-old went into the stall and found a firearm. The dad was able to remain calm as he instructed his daughter of how to hand over the weapon to him.

He handed over the gun to the sheriff's office and an investigation has been launched.

Cody Swy was clothes shopping with his four-year-old daughter, Sarae, and three-year-old son, Landon in Lansing. When Sarae had to go to the bathroom, the dad walked her over and sent her into the stall for the disabled in the men's room so she would have privacy.

While in the stall, Sarae found a gun in a holster hanging on the hook. She grabbed it and opened the door, pointing it inadvertently at her father's chest.

"What's this, dad?” she asked.

Swy, who formerly worked as a military police officer and was trained with the National Guard, calmly instructed his daughter to hand it over to him. "I didn't freak out because I knew if I freaked out, she could have jolted and possibly have fired," said the 26-year-old dad to the Detroit Free Press. "I know how to talk someone down with a weapon, I've been there, but it's never been my own flesh and blood."

"Baby put it down. Put it down," he told his daughter, backing out of the stall. He instructed Sarae to aim the firearm at the floor. When she did, he rushed in and carefully took the weapon out of her hands.

Swy found the gun was loaded with a full magazine and a bullet in the chamber. This was a recipe for disaster.

The weapon is now in the hands of the Grand Traverse County Sheriff's Office, and officers are investigating who might have left it in the bathroom. They tried to track down the gun's owner through the serial number, but they couldn't find any records on it.

They're now trying to trace where the gun might have been sold.

Macy's is cooperating with authorities and is reviewing the store video footage to see who used the bathroom earlier that day.

Swy is a little shaken, but thankfully he and his children are unharmed. "This is the first time my kids have ever been around a gun," he said.

He continued: "This stuff just happened in Las Vegas with the weapons and that sort. Right now, nobody knows what happened with the gun Sarae found. Was it a guy who took it off and put it on the handrail and just forgot? Or it could have been someone planning on going into the mall and shooting it up and then got cold feet and left it there."

It makes the father of two shudder to think of the backstory, and how close his family came to danger. "After all that is happening in the world, I have no idea, especially in America right now, with the president, the left and the right, all this hate, the NFL, I have no idea what's going on. America is at its most crazy point ever."